Determining and documenting the extent of damage to a structure can be risky for the person determining the damage. For example, in a situation where a structure has experienced roof damage, someone typically climbs onto the roof to evaluate the damage. Once on the roof, he or she may sketch the damaged area of the roof in order to document the damage. In the alternative, he or she might take a digital picture of the damaged area. Afterwards, the picture might be analyzed by someone to estimate the extent of damage to the structure. In either scenario, the person has exposed himself or herself to a risk of falling.
Further, pictures or video of a roof or structure often provide inadequate detail for thorough inspection. Poor image quality resulting from camera movement or an out-of-focus image can make it difficult to estimate the condition of a structure based on the image. Even where image quality is adequate, poor angles or bad lighting may hide or exaggerate details important to estimating the condition of the structure, leading to inaccurate assessments of the structure's condition.